30/4/2018
Qatar Chamber’s chairman HE Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim Al-Thani said that the decline in rents seen lately in the country began in 2015 as a result of reforms and not due to the unjust blockade on Qatar.
He noted that the State has resorted to policies that would lead to a correction in rent prices as they had seen unjustified increases in previous years, and due to its impact on inflation. Some of the policies included offering temporary warehouses and establishing new housing for workers. Other companies also established economic residential compounds, all factors that contributed to the decline.
Sheikh Khalifa referred to real estate statistics issued by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, the Ministry of Justice and a number of real estate companies to demonstrate the validity of these conclusions. He also referred to the annual real estate publication issued by the Ministry of Justice, Of the real estate transactions witnessed a remarkable growth in 2017 with 3988 real estate transactions with a total trading value of QR32.7 billion compared to 3343 transactions during the year 2016 with total financial turnover of only QR27 billion.
He also cited the Quarterly Estimates of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) issued by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, which indicated that nominal value added (in current prices) of the real estate activity in the country increased in the third quarter of 2017 to QR10.8 billion 0.6 percent In the third quarter of 2016.
Sheikh Khalifa added that the total value added of real estate activity according to the same source for the same period witnessed a remarkable increase of (9.650) billion riyals, an increase of (4.1 percent) compared to the same period of 2016. His Excellency called for the need to address all rumors and claims that seek to destabilize the economy by saying it is negatively affected by the blockade, stressing that those who spread those rumors are working against the interest of the state’s economy and policies, which will remain firm.
